Whoopi

By Keith Boykin, in theater
Monday, November 8 2004, 12:00PM

She's back! Proving the old adage that you can't keep a good woman down, the irrepressible Whoopi Goldberg returns to the Broadway stage this month to reprise the legendary 1984 show that launched her career. If you simply want the sanitized Whoopi of Sister Act and Ghost, this is not the show for you. This is a show for adults, and Whoopi is funny, serious, political, dramatic, entertaining, live and raw.

When diet company Slim-Fast dropped Goldberg as a spokesperson because of "sexually explicit" comments she made about President Bush at a John Kerry rally during the summer, Whoopi didn't retreat an inch. "The fact that I am no longer the spokesman for Slim-Fast makes me sad," she said, "but not as sad as someone trying to punish me for exercising my right as an American to speak my mind."

As in real life, Whoopi Goldberg is defiant in this show. She resurrects the same characters she used in her 1984 show but gives them a new edge for the new times. The show begins with Fontaine, the politically-conscious drug-addict who has plenty to talk about now that Bush has been re-elected.

We also get to see the hilarious Valley Girl, who Goldberg depicts sympathetically as a victim of her own ignorance and society's misogyny. And there is a new character, Raynice Copperkettle, a middle-aged Southern woman who can't stop fanning herself.

At the opening night of the previews, Goldberg included the character of the little black girl who wants blonde hair, but it wasn't clear if that character will be a permanent fixture in the show.

I never saw the original 1984 show, but I have read about it for years. The new show, in a multi-racial audience that is still mostly white, shows Goldberg's amazing versatility as an actress, a stage performer and a comedian.

Goldberg's true genius is her ability to translate serious thoughts about the world through comedic characters. The characters are hilarious in who they are and what they have to say, but their life stories are so compelling that they tell us about who we are as a society. At times, we almost feel bad for laughing at them. Or are we laughing with them?

A New York-born comedian and actress, Goldberg started her career doing stand up in the San Francisco Bay Area before she catapulted to fame when her one-woman show, "Whoopi Goldberg," opened at New York's Lyceum Theater in October 1984. The show ran until March 1985 and unlocked the doors of opportunity for Goldberg's illustrious career.

She won an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Celie in The Color Purple, and then went on to star in Jumpin' Jack Flash, Ghost, Sister Act and 145 other films over the years. She is one of the few artists to have won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a Grammy, and she also received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award.

Whoopi is an amazing show that you won't want to miss. No matter what your background or your politics, the show has something for you. I've never seen a show that could make middle-aged white women and militant black men both fall out of their seats in laughter. Whoopi is just that kind of show.

Whoopi Goldberg performs at New York's Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th Street. Previews continue until opening night on November 17.

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